


On its Own Terms

by coldfiredragon



Category: The Magicians (TV), The Magicians - Lev Grossman
Genre: Brakebills, implied character deaths, the welters challenge, week one
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-06-06
Updated: 2017-06-06
Packaged: 2018-11-09 20:08:55
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,637
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11111940
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/coldfiredragon/pseuds/coldfiredragon
Summary: The first indication that there would be a time loop was the disappearance of the Physical students and knowledge student Julia Wicker a few months from the end of the year.The Welters Challenge entry week 1





	On its Own Terms

**Author's Note:**

> This is my submission for week 1 of the Welter's challenge. Theme Brakebills
> 
> This features repetive, non-graphic mentions of character deaths. You know it happened, we know there were 40 time loops. 
> 
> I hope everyone enjoys! Feedback is love! Kudos are amazing!

The first indication that there would be a time loop was the disappearance of the Physical students and knowledge student Julia Wicker a few months from the end of the year.

 

Fifth-year students Victoria, and Josh, third-year students Eliot and Janet, and first years Alice, Julia and Quentin simply disappeared one evening and stayed gone as the term advanced. Henry assumed Victoria had taken the group somewhere and her abilities weren’t quite as under control as everyone believed. 

 

Life continued on campus without them. The rest of the fifth year class graduated and campus emptied for the summer. Construction on a new library expansion commenced and was almost complete when Henry woke up one morning to find the clock rewound. His library development was gone, and the maze matched the pattern it had held during the previous summer. As he walked around campus looking for more changes he swore he saw Eliot heading for the dock with a pack of cigarettes in his hand. 

 

Henry was about the follow the dark-haired waif and demand answers when Pearl caught up with him and presented him with the finalized list of new first year candidates. Quentin Coldwater was the fourth name on the alphabetical list, Alice Quinn was fifteenth, and Julia Wicker rounded out the list at thirty-two. Henry politely asked her to remind him what date the exam had been set for and her response confirmed that he was either having a very lucid dream or time had been set back nearly a year.

 

He went to bed that night hoping things would return to normal by morning, but they hadn’t. He found himself chaperoning an exam room of potential students identical to the one from the summer before. There was no way for him to wind an invisible clock forward, so he settled in and relived a year of his life. It was a unique opportunity to study new disciplines, read more books, and create new spells.

 

Early in the year, there was an attack on the first year class, and near the year’s end, the same group of students disappeared again. Henry hoped for a different outcome, but he woke one morning near the end of the summer to again find his library expansion disassembled. Eliot had returned, and when Pearl presented him with the list of candidates Quentin was still number four, but Alice’s name wasn’t on the list.

 

The loops continued, the attacks continued, and small things would change. Quentin started coming to him for answers. After losing the library expansion for the fourth time, Henry decided to halt all new construction on campus until he figured out what the hell was happening. It wasn’t the loop that bothered him so much as the effect it had on his school. Brakebills was supposed to grow and change. The school was intended to embrace new students and challenge them. Whatever magic they had all fallen victim to was powerful enough to drag the school along with it. 

 

As the end of summer neared during the seventh loop, Henry started taking to the grounds during the night in hopes of catching the time shift in action. He camped in the empty physical cottage one evening and woke up to sounds in the bedrooms above his head. On silent feet, he headed for the stairs only to be met by a red-haired woman in a pale pink capelet coat as she came down them. She clutched a fat silver watch in her hands, and the thing leaked the most powerful magic Henry had ever felt.

 

“So you are aware.” She said before Henry could speak. “Come along. I’ll answer your questions.” She pushed past him, and Henry glanced up the stairs. “Let Eliot sleep.” She ordered quietly from the open doorway.

 

“What are you doing to them?” He demanded as the cottage door closed behind them. He grabbed her arm as she continued to walk and spun her to face him. “Tell me now!” He ordered. 

 

“I am trying to save magic.” The woman told him. 

 

“You can’t use my school or my students to do it,” Fogg told her firmly. She laughed.

 

“I will use whatever, whomever, I have to.” She informed him. “This is bigger than you or your school or the handful of students I’ve picked.”

 

“Who are you?” Henry demanded.

 

“I was born Jane Chatwin.” The woman told him and had laughed. His hand tightened around her arm.

 

“I’m not someone you want to fuck with, Ms. Chatwin.” He says the name sarcastically because he doesn’t believe that this woman is Jane Chatwin. Jane Chatwin disappeared as a child, as did her brother. Their disappearances had fueled a lackluster series of children’s fantasy books to international prominence. 

 

“Fillory is real, Dean Henry Fogg. It is the source of magic in this world and many others. I see you don’t yet realize my sincerity, but given time, I’m sure you’ll understand the gravity of the situation. Come, you have questions I will give you answers.”

 

Henry followed her because instinct told him that she had the power to do what she wanted, with little regard for how it affected others. If he is going to remember each failure then perhaps he could at least give his students a chance to succeed. 

 

He and Jane Chatwin sat in his office with scotch, for hours, and as the woman explained he did grow to believe she is actually Jane Chatwin. She explained to him about Fillory, and Plover, and his obsession with her brother and how the abuse had driven away his humanity. Henry came to understand the attacks, and why they happened, and as the eight loop began, he walked with Jane through campus. Together they watched the rows of the hedge maze rearrange. 

 

“You must find a way to limit the effects of your watch to just the students you intend to use.” He told her. He would reluctantly hand over the fates of a handful of pupils if he meant his school flourished as it was intended and his other students got to come and go.

 

“I’ll do my best.” Jane agreed. Together they decided what would change in loop eight, and nine, and ten. In loop eleven Quentin, Alice, and Julia makes it through the full five years before going to Fillory. In loop twelve they make it through four. In the fourteenth Julia spends a year as a hedge witch and Quentin and Alice are allowed to test into their second year early. After loop seventeen Henry made the agonizingly difficult decision to shorten the length of the school curriculum from five years to three.

 

Victoria and all but three members of her class disappeared around spring break in loop twenty-one, and Jane came to him in tears when she realized she couldn’t rescue Victoria. The missing third-year class passed into legend, and the remaining three students were infamous enough for not going that it forces Jane to make them part of the time loop too. Henry chafed under the restraints as each loop became more repetitive and predictable. None of the other professors gained awareness. He was alone to shoulder the burden and watch in silence, and explain to Quentin what he and his friends faced when the boy came to him each year. 

 

Around loop twenty-four Jane started to meddle in the hope of bringing her chosen group together quicker. They had picked Penny as the new traveler but bringing him into the fold had proven difficult. Alice, Julia, Quentin, Eliot, and Margo (because the girl’s name had changed from one loop to the next for unknown reasons) had started to share some shred of subconscious awareness. Eliot and Margo became friends upon meeting one another, Quentin and Julia arrived as a pair, and all it usually took was introducing Quentin and Eliot on the first day to bind the sets of two. Alice always needed a little more pushing. Penny rapidly became a pain in the ass, so Jane introduced Kady to help keep him in line. 

 

In loop twenty-nine, Henry lost his eye-sight to The Beast for the first time during Quentin’s second year. He devised new wards to try and stop the attacks, and they worked until loop thirty-two when he lost both hands. 

 

With each new loop, Jane’s desperation grew. Henry could see the toll the loops were taking on their chosen group. Eliot drank more without knowing why, Quentin’s depression grew worse, Penny became angrier as the Beast whispered to him and Alice became more obsessed each loop with her brother’s death. Martin got progressively smarter, and loop thirty-four was the last time Quentin made it all the way through his three-year program.

 

In loop thirty-five Jane made the most radical change to date. Quentin failed his exam and became a hedge witch. The boy ended up on campus anyway near the end of Julia’s second year, and Henry held the dreaded conversation about the time loop yet again. In loop thirty-six, Jane tried the trick again, this time with Margo, but without her supervision, Eliot slid fully into addiction and overdosed during Quentin’s first year. In loop thirty-seven Eliot failed his exam, and the boy rose so fast through the circle of New York hedge witches that Jane almost left him there for loop thirty-eight. In loop thirty-nine it was Kady’s turn to have her go as a hedge-witch, and something must have stuck because the girl held her ties to them into the fortieth loop. 

 

When Jane dies at the hands of The Beast’s thrull Henry feels a mix of emotions. He feels grief for losing a friend, fear for the fate of magic, and relief because his school will finally be free to change and grow on its own terms again.


End file.
